Parental Involvement:
Censorship? Or Good Parenting?
Q. What
if the content in a book that our teenager's school assigns or recommends is
raunchy, R-rated or worse? Is it distasteful censorship, or good parenting, to
complain?
Here's
a great resource that can answer questions like yours:
http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/2007/oct07/books-in-schools.html
It's always
good for parents to give schools honest feedback about the curriculum that our
tax dollars is providing for our students. After all, they're the employees and
you're the bosses!
Never
shrink back from voicing your concerns; you may be surprised how much good a
thoughtful, courteous parent can do. Often, administrators are wishing and
hoping for parents just like that to pitch in and help. "Continuous quality
improvement" is the mantra in many districts; good ones welcome input and
recognize that it is by little changes, consistently over time, that excellence
is achieved.
And
no, it's not censorship to complain, and ask that objectionable books be
replaced with higher quality fare. Steering students to quality books doesn't
mean certain books are censored; as long as students can still obtain what you
call "raunchy, R-rated" books in the public library or in a bookstore, no
censorship has occurred.
Individual
citizens can't be censors, anyway. Only the government can censor books; the
rest of us can only exercise our judgment, good or bad. It becomes a problem
when educators don't have very good judgment, though. Parents and the public
have to step in, and demand their legal right to insist on quality, appropriate
learning materials.
A
parent protest involving more than 70 families recently turned out well in
Lewis Center, Ohio, where the school superintendent ordered two of four books
on a recommended summer reading list for incoming sophomore English classes at
Liberty High School be thrown out. The reasons: sexual violence, repeated profanity,
and blasphemous anti-Christian content.
Superintendent
Scott Davis ordered The Lovely Bones
by Alice Sebold and The Curious Incident
of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon stricken from the list after
parental complaints.
According to a report in the Columbus
Dispatch, the first novel starts off with a rape and murder scene and the
second one is a murder mystery peppered with dozens of profanities and
derogatory references to Jesus and God. A parent recorded the page numbers on
which the objectionable scenes and curse words appeared, and turned it in to
the district.
The superintendent said that there
are millions of books to choose from that DON'T have graphic sex scenes and
excessive violence and profanity, but still cover challenging and interesting topics.
He said exercising good judgment in selecting particular books to recommend to
students should be easy. He faulted what he called a "lack of communication" by
his staff with parents about how and why the books were selected. He called for
a new selection process for next summer in which teachers, administrators,
board members and parents all have input into the list.
The first step in lodging a
complaint is to read the book yourself, document what's objectionable, band
together with other parents, talk to people who know literature, and list some
alternatives that do a better job teaching the same basic ideas, without the
rape scenes, "f" words and put-downs of Jesus Christ. Then make an appointment
with the educators, and work your way up the chain of command until you get
someone who loves good books . . . and wants to "be careful, little eyes what
you see."
Homework: You can check book reviews and good information from Parents
Against Bad Books In Schools, www.pabbis.org